Conventional pick and place devices for mounting electronic components on a printed circuit board utilize a vacuum probe or head to pick-up the chip and place it at a selected position on the substrate. Such a typical device can be seen, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,397, commonly-assigned herewith.
There is a disadvantage with such typical pick and place devices in that the nozzle tip formed on the lower end portion of the head can only pick-up a limited range of sizes and shapes of components. Thus, multiple nozzles or nozzle tips must be provided, changed via an off-line nozzle tip selector, to pick-up a wide range of components. This is an expensive and inefficient method of handling widely varying electronic components.
There is a further disadvantage with typical devices in that the pocket from which the chip is removed is much larger than the chip itself. Thus, when removing the chip, it is difficult to keep the chip from flipping on edge.